With allies like these, who needs enemies.

The BBQ Pit
81

Is this directed at my post? You know, I deployed a heavy dose of sarcasm in the mix. It’s my interpretation that many people in this thread consider Afghans to be offended by the burning of bodies solely because of Islam. Tactical maneuvers or whatever crap aside, do you have to subscribe to certain religions to be offended by such stuff? I’m religionless (I’m not using the extremely limiting terms “atheist” and “agnostic”) and I find it really sad.

As for the Geneva Convention comments, I was merely stating -again, my interpretation- that some find these kinds of events to be wrong because it’s against the law. To me, that’s kind of dehumanizing. Like I said, the Convention is against such things for a reason, and I don’t think it’s just because of religion. Sometimes it’s about the right thing to do and not what you’re allowed to or not. In this case, you’re not allowed to do what I thought most people would agree was wrong. I guess I’m the one who was wrong about that.

82

No argument

Only if the latter “accepts and applies the provisions thereof” , meaning the Geneva convention. Whether the Taliban has accepted or applied the terms of the Geneva convention through their actions might be arguable, but I doubt it.

83

By ignorance I presume you mean all opinions that do not accord with your own? An odd definition of the word but there you are. (“When I use a word”, said Humpty Dumpty in a rather scornful tone, “it means what I want it to mean.”)

As regards a lack of human decency, I am, I would hope, neither an unfeeling nor a callous person. I take no delight in acts such as those of the soldiers concerned. I do recognize, however, the exigencies of war. The taunting of a foe, the ridicule and excoriation of all he holds dear and sacred, has been a part of warfare since the dawn of time. (See Homer’s Iliad for some memorable instances.) The message to the Taliban in this instance is that they do not deserve to be treated as good Muslims, they are simply terrorists and a disgrace to the religion they purportedly hold so dear.

That is funny on so many levels! (You knew that, right?)

84

Dutchie… this is odd.

You just admitted that Monty was right.
If that’s the case, then the person they’re talking about accepting the GC is clearly “said power”.

You admit that… and then blithely go on to a ltitle bait and switch where you again pretend that 'said power" is talking about a non-signatory nation. Why? Is it dishonest or just a mistake?

85

aldiboronti The thing you miss here is that all the report does is let western audiences know what is going on. The rumor would have flown around Afghanistan and Pakistan, and people there would know of it, and many would be prone to believe it, and would act accordingly. However, if the reporter hadn’t reported it, we’d all be ignorant and wondering why more and more Muslims are hating us every day.

It’s kind of like the fact that Americans tend to be pretty fucking unaware that we created Saddam Hussein. They don’t know that he was a CIA assassin paid to kill the Prime Minister when he was 22, and they don’t know that we armed him with weapons and intelligence, including the WMDs, that Dubya knew he had because his Daddy sold them to Iraq.

If reporters were bound by the ethics you wish them to be bound by, we’d be fighting a never ending war, that we’d all mistakenly believe was a conflict generated out of a difference in religious belief, when in reality it is a conflict generated by war profiteers in a Military Industrial Complex that the last President we had who was also a General: Eisenhower warned us against during his farewell address in 1961. You can go on convincing yourself that these people are a threat to us for no reason but their own vitriol, but that’s in fact false, they don’t hate us for no reason, they hate us for very good reason, and if our objectives are truly peace and democracy, I for one want to hold people accountable when they commit atrocities that only exacerbate the problem.

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
History of Iran: Arming Iraq: A Chronology of U.S. Involvement

One day enough people will know the truth about this bloody conflict that people will either have to change their support for it, or it will become blazingly obvious that they are merely hating others for the sake of finding someone to hate.

We are the aggressors, we are the oppressors, that is the truth. It’s why the war is in THEIR country. It’s why we have the better weapons, why even people who are poor in America have food to eat and often cable television. Lincoln said that America could not be held by a foreign occupier, that remains as true today as it was then. We invade other countries so that American billionaires can become trillionaires, and fashion themselves as masters of the universe. What do you think the mileage on an F-16, an M1A1, or a Destroyer is? If a Hummer H2 gets 7 mpg, then how much must a Humvee that is supercharged and much heavier due to armaments, armor and materiel, get?

Let me know when you’re tired of being put at risk so that people who are already billionaires can get even richer. Let me know when you are tired of supporting people who probably wouldn’t even give you the time of day.

Erek

86

Monty, very well stated.

Hopefully our own Army will persue those responsible and they’ll be out of the Special Forces.

Please also recall how our nation felt when we saw the bodies of American Rangers being dragged naked through the streets of Mogadishu. It certainly had an effect on people. That effect was not, “hey, let’s go do some tactically stupid stuff and get ourself killed right now!” Rather, I think it created hate. When I see tapes of those men being dragged and beaten in the streets, men with families that were just carrying out their orders for the United States military which some bastard felt compelled to humiliate and desicrate after they were already dead and to no tactical advantage, I really understand wanting nothing more than wanting the warlords responsible for their death and subsequent public display dead too. Image how this will affect the rest of the Muslim world. For people that are already on the verge of being willing to take up arms or terrorism against us, this seems to be a type of polarizing event that might push them to action.

If you’re too much of a prick to be unable to understand that mutilating corpses is repugnant, if for nothing else, be angry with these soldiers for endangering their own lives, the lives of their coworkers, and your own.

87

Nah, I tried to volunteer but goose-stepping through the door did me no favors with the recruiting-sergeant. And when he found out I was a goat-felcher …

88

The Hook: Thanks. And again, my apologies for missing the sarcasm in it.

The Flying Dutchman: “Said Power” in that convention refers to the Power that already accepts the convention. It doesn’t matter if the other power doesn’t; the power that accepts the convention is bound by it.

threemae: Thank you.

89

Wow! Those billionaires sure are evil people!

Can I let you know when I get tired of simplistic shit such as your argument?

90

It would be very nice if the actions of our troops sent only the “messages” that we wanted to convey, wouldn’t it?

Unfortunately, the “message” that a lot of Muslims—those who hear the rumor from their fellow Afghanis as well as those who read about it in the world press—are getting from this incident is that Americans are contemptuous of Islam and enjoy desecrating Muslim corpses.

Anybody who thinks that insulting the Taliban is more important than not horrifying and offending non-enemy Muslims is a fool.

Anybody who thinks it’s okay for our soldiers to clandestinely commit horrifying and offensive acts like corpse desecration, as long as they manage to keep it out of the media, is worse than a fool.

And is that what you say when the corpses of American soldiers are treated with public contempt and humiliation by our enemies? Did you go around telling angry Americans that stripping dead American soldiers naked to be jeered at and mutilated is just part of the exigencies of war? And that our anger should be directed at the media who reported these acts rather than the enemy soldiers who committed them?

Somehow I doubt it.

91

FinnAgain, please read the quote from Article 2 of the convention again.

Shall I parse this out for you?

Okay, so here we have a provision for how a Power should deal with non signatories

Okay, so far if there are several signatory powers involved in a conflict that also includes a non signatory power, then at least the convention must be observed between the signatory powers involved.

Now what about dealing with the non signatory power for which this paragraph exists?

They = signatory powers

said Power = non signatory power, the subject of the paragraph.

latter= said power

if = indicates the former statement binding a signatory is conditional.

Regardless of the disrespectful behavior of the soldiers, I would at least hope that we want to get our facts straight.

92

The Flying Dutchman: Why are you having such a problem with understanding that the word latter refers to the power that is a signatory to the convention? It doesn’t matter if the other party to the conflict isn’t a signatgory; those signatories to the convention are bound by it in all of their armed conflicts.

93

Okay Monty, explain the “if the latter accepts and applies the conditions thereof”

You can’t be suggesting that a signatory power is no longer bound by the convention if they fail to accept and apply the conditions of the convention.

94

Are you intentionally dishonest or are you stupid? I’m suggesting–as the Convention itself does–that those signatories to it are compelled to follow said convention. You seem to want the word latter to refer to what it clearly does refer to when it suits your whim but to refer to something it clearly does not refer to when it doesn’t suit your whim. The word latter in the article you quoted clearly refers to the party which signed the convention!

95

Okay Monty, explain the “if the latter accepts and applies the conditions thereof”

96

No, Canada dumping the USA as allies in Afghanistan would not be at all funny. Canada adds credibility and moral suasion to the war. The USA is running very short on that sort of thing – particularly due to the behavior of some of its troops. For Canada to walk away because the USA is no better that those being fought would be very telling to the international community. Fortunately, however, attitudes such as yours are rare.

97

I’ll side with The Flying Dutchman here, for once.

If a party (first) that has not signed the convention agrees to abide by it, then a party (second) that has signed the convention must abide by it in its dealings with the first party. If the first party does not agree to abide by the convention, then the second party is not required to abide by the convention in its dealings with the first party. Monty, I think you’re twisting the parsing out of control.

I would consider being a signator of the convention a moral obligation to abide by it in all instances, but it’s certainly not a legal one.

98

The problem with this sort of thing is it really is all relative. For example, we of the Western world view cannibalism with disgust and horror, but the Wari of the Amazon basin and certain native New Guineans (I forget the name) routinely ate the bodies of their dearly departed as part of the proper mourning ritual. The Wari (before they were forced to convert to Christianity) considered burial in the ground to be a horrible concept. So yes, it is bad because it is offensive to Muslims.

99

Morally, desecrating bodies is wrong. Anyone suggesting otherwise is no more than human detritus unwilling to recognize the importance of human decency.

Practically, desecrating bodies is wrong. It defeats the goal of trying to reduce terrorist attacks on western nations because it promotes people becoming terrorists.

Weaselling about as to whether or not an atrocity exists if no one in the locale knows about it, or whether or not the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorists, is no more than a pathetic attempt to squirm out from under the obvious.

100

Desecration is in the eyes of the beholder. Many corpses are burned in America by loved ones. Oh wait, burning Islamic bodies is a desecration, but it is okay to burn an unbelievers body? What is so special about Islamic bodies?This moral outrage on the part of westerners on behalf of a concept of desecration provided by a religion that holds believers of whatever ilk to deserve superior treatment and standing over unbelievers just baffles me.

Well cremating those Muslims was a mistake for the reason you state.

Yah, who the fuck cares about the truth. Someone erroneously asserts that America is in contravention of the Geneva Convention, so we must just accept it.